Psycho Duel Chapter 38: The Arcanist's Keep

*note, gonna start pushing ahead on the advanced chapters. this will make it four chapters ahead of Royal Road. sorry for any typos. enjoy!* 

The gong sounded.

Turn 2

Vigor Stones 2/2

03:00

Begin Draw?

Shae’s Chronico drone cams hovered around them, live-streaming the duel. She addressed her viewers. “Hey guys! The Flame of the Silver Tongue here with another duel! I know, I’m just as surprised as you guys are! I wasn’t expecting any more duels today since it’s way past midnight here, but I ran into an interesting situation while me and the crew were carrying out our objectives. I found this NPC who has somehow completed all his Trials! It’s an NPC Psycho Slinger! Can you believe it? You should have seen the poor guy’s face when I played Scrollkeep the Immortal!”

Scrollkeep stood next to its master, but its cowled head was pointed in Walt’s direction. He couldn’t see the minion’s eyes, but he knew it was staring him down. Tendrils of arcane energy flickered around it like Tesla coils.

Shae continued talking to her chat. “I thought he was going to shit himself!”

One of the cams tracked Walt.

“Look at him!” she said. “Isn’t he pathetic? Looks like he wants to cry home to mommy!”

Walt tried to ignore her by concentrating on his cards. He had the Phylactery, but couldn’t use it until late game. He didn’t want to risk it going to the discard pile, so he decided to hold onto the valuable card. Gnomesucker was a solid early game minion, so he kept that one as well. And the mirrors could be a play, but he didn’t want to hold onto two of them. So he discarded the Blood Mirror and drew two new cards.

Salvatore’s Phylactery

Hell Mirror

Gnomesucker

Blood Imp Mother

Blood Imp

He couldn’t Soultap into anything worthwhile yet that would be worth the sacrifice of health. If he played the Blood Imp, the Scrollkeep would just send remove it and bind it to the graveyard because it had less than ten Health Points. Besides passing, the only sensible play was using his two Vigor Stones to play the Hell Mirror. But he couldn’t do it in front of his opponent. Which left him with only one choice.

Walt ran.

“Oh, there he goes!” She laughed. “He tried to run away when I first saw him, too.”

He fled down a rocky ridge and onto a slope populated with poplar and beech trees.

Above him, he could hear Shae continuing to skim her chat, unthreatened by Walt. “No, scholio269, it doesn’t bother me when my opponents run. In the right situations I like it. I like seeing the fear in my opponent’s eyes. Does that make sense? Besides, I could use an easy duel where I can just win on auto-pilot. Especially after dueling KenPao96. I hate dueling against Silentblades.”

The last words Walt heard her say before he was out of ear shot were, “You guys want to see me win a Card Forge?”

#

Turn 2

01:01

Walt had less than thirty seconds to hide the Hell Mirror. His foot caught on some brush and he stopped to entangle himself. He discovered he was in a thicket of blackberry bushes. The copious vegetation seemed impenetrable.

He drew his card and the Hell Mirror materialized in his hand. Instead of using the targeting arrows, he lowered the surprisingly heavy mirror into the thicket. The mirror glass shimmered. For a moment, the reflection of Shae walking by a boulder while talking to her chat appeared. Then the glass flared with a crimson glow. It had just drained the Thaumaturgist of three Health Points.

Thaumaturgist

Health Points: 97

Walt shoved the Hell Mirror in deeper, lying it on the ground so the pale red glow of the ornate frame was invisible underneath the thick berry brush. He backed away and then arranged the bushes so none of the glow leaked out from below. One would have to move aside the vegetation to see the infernal object. Then he ran further down the ridge and hid behind a tree, putting his back to it and catching his breath.

Shae’s voice grew closer and she stepped onto the slope, gazing down in Walt’s direction. She was still casually talking to her audience. “The Silver Tongue really appreciates your support. Yeah, blinki3, his new album should be coming out in a few weeks. It was recorded way before the tournament and it was all planned by the record company to come out while he was competing. Have I heard it? I don’t know if I’m allowed to say.”

Her voice strained as she made a decision. “Alright, fine! It’s so good you guys! I don’t think anyone’s gonna be disappointed. That’s all I can say about it! You’ll just have to wait until it’s out – “ But then she stopped and said “Oh
”

She grew silent for a moment. Walt peaked around the tree and he could see her silhouette farther up the ridge. But he couldn’t tell what she was doing. But then he saw the card spinning through the air. It burst into ectoplasmic light above the berry thicket.

Then the giant translucent hand appeared. It was surrounded in a blue glow.

[Examine]

[Mage Hand]

Mage Hand. Minion. Set: Arcanist’s Keep. Rarity: Common. A spectral hand of arcane energy.

Arcane Slap: 3 Attack, Cooldown: 6 seconds

Health Points: 3

Cost: 1 Vigor Stone

What was she doing with it?

The Mage Hand lowered and then reached into the thicket, its fingers pushing aside the brush and branches. When the hand reappeared out of the thicket, it was holding the Hell Mirror.

“How cute!” Shae said. “This Voidlock was trying to be sneaky.”

The Mage Hand floated up to her and showed her the object in its grasp.

“A Hell Mirror?” Shae said. She was using her system interface to examine its card description. “You know, I thought I felt a little tinge of pain. It was such a small tick I assumed it was just indigestion.” Then she went back to reading. “’Set: Card Forge Combos.’ Hah! He created this using the Card Forge. The Card Forge that’s about to be mine. He just gave away his end game! This is part of his upcoming wombo combo!”

The Mage Hand formed into a fist and punched the Hell Mirror, cracking it. But it was still intact.

Then something in her chat must have caught her attention again. “Wait? What? This dude was featured on The Slaycast? And he beat Simmons?” She was surprised. But she kept reading the chat. “And he beat Ricky Z using these mirrors? He’s a combo player? This NPC? Unbelievable.”

Then she looked up from her Chat broadcast and looked down the mountain ridge in Walt’s direction. “Well, I got news for you, NPC! You’re not going to surprise me with your combos!”

Then the Mage Hand’s attack went off cool down. It punched the Hell Mirror again, shattering the glass. Shards of the mirror fell to the earth and the broken ornate frame started to dissolve at the molecular level. It morphed into red sand, then turned to motes of red light and flew down the mountain toward Walt.

His gauntlet absorbed the light particles as the card was taken off the board. He stared at the gauntlet, disturbed.

This was the first time out of all his duels where one of the mirrors required for his Life Leech combo was found and destroyed. He wasn’t sure if she had some class ability that allowed her to detect objects, or if he hadn’t hid the Hell Mirror as good as he thought he did.

But one thing was for sure, he didn’t think he would be able to pull off the Life Leech combo. This would make all his mirror cards pretty much obsolete.

The gong sounded.

Turn 3

Vigor Stones 3/3

03:00

Begin Draw?

He stayed where he was, his back pressed against the tree, and drew his next hand. He looked at the current cards. He pretty much knew what his next play would be, so he held onto the current hand and just drew one new card.

Salvatore’s Phylactery

Gnomesucker

Blood Imp Mother

Blood Imp

Desecrate X

Walt knew he had to start gambling. Both of the minions in hand both had less than ten Health Points. But he saw an opportunity to get a minion to stick to the board for enough time to remove Scrollkeep the Immortal from the board until Shae played it again. It would just be costly for Walt.

But he did it anyways. He Soultapped twice, gasping. His vision went blurry for a moment and his chest seized, like he was having a heart attack.

Voidlock

Health Points: 79

But the pain subsided and Walt flicked two cards into the air. From one card, a homunculus made out of blood and scabs appeared out of the swirling pool of blood that had formed in the air. It pulled itself with a wet plop and screeched, wagging its long, razor fingers.

The Gnomesucker dropped out of the air where the second card had disappeared. He arrived in a cloud of sulphur and was hugging his huge syringe with both arms. It was full of a bright, eldritch green liquid. “Master, you rang!”

At the top of the ridge, the Gnomesucker’s voice caught Shae’s attention. She crouched and peered down the ridge, readying herself. Her cards floated above her gauntlet. “We’ve got action, folks!”

The Blood Imp dropped to all fours and charged up the ridge towards Walt’s opponent, kicking up a plume of dirt, pebbles and leaves.

Scrollkeep the Immortal stepped in front of Shae and pointed at the Blood Imp. The tendrils of arcane energy flowed down in its arm and burst out of its finger in one big spinning ball of power. Its Arcane Command attack hit the Blood Imp in a burst of arcane sparks.

The energy enclosed around Walt’s minion trapping it. But before it took it off the board, the Blood Imp shrieked and projectile vomited a stream of noxious blood.

It hit splattered across Shae’s chest and face, startling her. She looked at the strings of tainted black blood and pulled the web of vomit off her chest. “Ew!”

But then it started to burn like acid, searing the skin of her chest and face. It melted the skin on her fingers. She screamed in pain as the damage took hold and the poison ticked, pulsing red on her wounds.

Thaumaturgist

Health Points: 90

In a blink of arcane light, the Blood Imp had disappeared, banished to Walt’s Card Graveyard and anchored to the interdimensional zone.

Next, the Gnomesucker charged up the ridge at the Thaumaturgist. It lowered the syringe like a jousting lace and let out a war cry. “For the glory of the Dark Casters!”

But a card appeared in Shae’s hand and she spun, releasing it. A bolt of arcane energy streaked from her finger tips, heading for a collision course with the Gnomesucker.

[Examine]

[Transmogrify]

Transmogrify: Pig. Spell. Set: Arcanist’s Keep. Rarity: Rare. Strike fear into the heart of your opponent by showing them the transformative power of the arcane!

Transform a minion into a Pig.

Cost: 3 Vigor Stones

The bolt of arcane energy hit the Gnomesucker, knocking him onto his back on the slope. He dropped the syringe. It embedded into the dirt, tip first. A puddle of green noxious ooze formed on the ground.

The Gnomesucker clutched his chest as ripples of arcane magic raced across his body, encasing him. “Well, ain’t this the pits!”

There was a poof of pink arcane energy. When the light and dust cleared, the Gnomesucker had disappeared. In his place was a pink pig. Its corkscrew tail wobbled behind it. The pig snorted and started sniffing around the glade. It found a mushroom and inhaled it.

[Examine]

[Pig]

Pig. Minion. Set: Lively Livestock. Rarity: Common. Oink!

Headbutt: 1 Attack

Health Points: 1

Cost: 1 Vigor Stone

“Come on!” Walt said. “Are you fucking serious?”

The Thaumaturgist had just made him waste Health Points by transmogrifying his minion. He had used two Soultaps to play the Gnomesucker. And now it was a farm animal.

Shae laughed. “You really thought you were making a smart play, didn’t you?” Then she cut her laughter short. And her face became serious. Her voice deepened. “You’ll soon tremble before the arcane power of the Arcanist’s Keep.”